


Though the Heart Be Still as Loving

by reine_des_corbeaux



Series: So We'll Go No More a Roving [2]
Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fae, Bittersweet Ending, Fae Magic, Gatsby lives but all is not sunshine and roses, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Obsessive Love, Pining, Post-Canon, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 10:00:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18892360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reine_des_corbeaux/pseuds/reine_des_corbeaux
Summary: The Summer King is dead, Nick Carraway tries to sort out the broken pieces of his time as Gatsby's friend, and nothing, not even death, is eternal in the courts of the fae.





	Though the Heart Be Still as Loving

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ConvenientAlias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/gifts).



When the news reaches Nick, he’s already planning Gatsby’s funeral. From the moment he feels the change in the air, he is already trying to stop up his tears with furious typing.  _ Don’t cry,  _ he thinks, punching keys on his typewriter with such ferocity that the ribbon tangles and the keys jam.  _ It’s just summer ending early. Things never truly die.  _ He tries to focus on the letter he’s writing, but the words blur, and the banal greetings he’s sending home seem false and forced while death hangs heavy on the wind. When the men from Gatsby’s come to his house, he brushes away his tears, greets them politely, and hurries over to the enormous mansion he’s spent so much time in this whole long, blessed summer. 

Gatsby’s house is ghostly in the daylight, already flung out of time by the day’s transformations, with its many windows dark and its grounds empty. The sun shines down through a filter of clouds, a thin, wan light too perfect for such a sad errand. Nick wonders for a moment if it’s Jordan’s doing, and then he wonders where Jordan could be. Has she gone already, tired of Courts and politicking, and the cutting whims of Daisy Buchanan? 

_ She loved Daisy _ , a mean little voice whispers in Nick’s mind.  _ She’d never abandon her for the Summer Court.  _

Daisy will disappear, Nick knows, to Boston or to Paris or to the Otherworld. She’ll telephone in a year or so, at once contrite and thoughtless, and invite him to come visit her wherever it is that she’s living. It doesn’t matter. Summer’s ending, for the Summer King is dead, and that’s the only important thing now. 

Nick’s always been good with mortality. 

“Rotten luck, old sport,” Gatsby said when Nick told him in the vaguest of terms. “Of all the things to have an affinity for.” 

He has no idea where Gatsby’s magic resides.  _ Resided.  _ Like so many other things, he speaks about his powers in half-truths and judicious silences, and there are as many rumors about this aspect of Gatsby as there are about every other bit of his personality. It’s part of his charm, part of what keeps the Summer King aloof. 

_ I heard he could control the five winds.  _

_ No, he can stop bullets, silly. It’s how he survived the War.  _

_ That’s not a real talent. Anyone can stop a bullet. Jay Gatsby, now there’s a man skilled in the art of glamour. He turned himself into a tiger once, for a prank when he was at Oxford.  _

It’s no use speculating, Nick decides, because Gatsby is dead. His soul left his body and fled to the Otherworld. It’s not common to die with such short notice, but other fae have done such things, and Nick knows this hollow ache of mortal pain too well. He distracts himself by glancing up at the shadowy portraits on Gatsby’s walls, with their shrouded eyes and dark shadows, and he sees nothing of the brilliance of the Summer Court in their varnished sheen. The paintings never looked so somber at parties, but maybe their blank stares have always been warning of something terrible floating up on the tide. 

They reach the back of the house, and there is the pool, and a mattress floating within, and a prone form on the mattress, and Nick feels his knees buckling even as they walk to the pool deck. He cannot let anyone see him mourn like this, not in such an undignified manner, and he closes his eyes while someone else pulls the mattress to the side of the pool. After a few seconds, Nick opens his eyes again and flaps his hands wildly at his companions. 

“You can go,” he says. “Give me a moment alone with him.” 

“We found another body!” someone else calls, perhaps the chauffeur. 

And so the others leave, and Nick remains, here with the corpse of his friend, and he once again wishes to cry. They’ve managed to pull the mattress to the side of the pool, and Gatsby’s lying there in his swimming costume, Summer’s crown perched gracefully atop his head, all leaves and vines like the bounty of a harvest. A single flower rests upon his eyelid, and at the sight, Nick cannot help himself. He wails, not caring who can hear or see him, bringing his head to his hands and letting out the tears he’s been holding in. Here, sitting on the side of a swimming pool, Nick mourns the death he’s known about all day. 

“What’s wrong, old sport?” 

He jumps, startled by a familiar voice from the vicinity of the mattress. 

“Gatsby?” 

“Who else?” 

And there he is, looking just as strong and vital as he had in life, sitting cross-legged on what had moments before been his deathbed. Nick tries to school his face into something resembling stoic calm, but he fails utterly, and his lip quivers with fresh tears. 

“You were dead,” he says, feeling a bit stupid for stating the obvious so baldly. 

“Death’s only a state of mind! Did you really think some human bullets would be enough to kill me?” 

Nick has to admit he’s been foolish, mourning over the Summer King when summer wasn’t even over. 

“I suppose I did. Foolish of me, really,” he says, staring at Gatsby, at the slowly closing bullet hole in his chest. 

When Gatsby smiles, it’s a full Summer smile, the kind of expression usually reserved for the occasions when he holds court over the Revels on heady, moon-silvered nights. It seems so wrong here, for everything’s wrong, even the crown. The circlet of grapevines and wildflowers looks bacchanalian, hanging hooked awkwardly over one ear, sliding down Gatsby’s golden head. He looks neither fully fae nor fully human in this late-summer light, paled by clouds. At this moment, Gatsby doesn’t look like the Summer King. Instead, he is a creature trapped somewhere in between states of existence, smeared with mortal blood, but filled to brimming with immortal life. 

“Did you really think I died?” Gatsby asks anxiously, coming to sit next to Nick, to dangle his feet in the blue waters of the pool. 

“I couldn’t feel otherwise. It’s what I do best. Some people, like Miss Baker, have an uncanny talent for the weather. Others can do transformations far greater than any other fae could dream of. Me, I know when people die, when things end.” 

Nick’s never revealed that so specifically in this unfamiliar East. Daisy knew, because she was family, and it wouldn’t do to tell her otherwise, and the rest of his family back home knew, but never anyone else. Not Jordan, not Tom, not, until today, Gatsby. He hopes that Gatsby won’t press too far. Not even Daisy’s transformations can transmute the bonds of friendship once disrupted back to what they once were. And his feelings for Gatsby are more than friendship, more than words. 

“Guess it doesn’t work for Summer, though,” Nick says. “Or maybe the Summer King died, but Jay Gatsby didn’t.” 

“Can’t be true. Jay Gatsby  _ is _ the Summer King. They’re one and the same.” 

“So, you’re not really Jay Gatsby,” Nick says. 

It’s out before he can stop it, bursting open the quiet like a summer storm. Gatsby looks at him, a look so full of regret and sadness that it makes Nick ache. 

“That’s a long story, old sport. I’ll tell you later, once we’ve cleaned up this mess.” 

“What are you planning to do?” 

“Turn this in.” Gatsby flips the crown from off his head, grinning. “I think I’ve had enough of being the Summer King.” 

“Summer’s not over yet,” Nick says. 

“Summer ends when Summer dies, and I think I’ve covered the death bit pretty well. It’s nearly autumn. The Court can start preparing to elect Winter, and I’ll go on holiday. Does Daisy know I’m dead?” 

Nick looks at the ground, at the leaves blowing across the terrace in the afternoon breeze. 

“Daisy’s packing up to leave already. I don’t know where she’s going, but I think she’s made her choice.” 

Gatsby stares off into the distance, out at the line of shrubberies shielding his home from the sea. 

“I should’ve guessed. Where to?” 

“Again, I don’t know, but maybe France? She seems to have been happy there in the past.” 

They sit quietly for a moment, letting the breezes dance through their hair, and Nick is hesitant to break the silence. 

“What will you do, now that you’re not Summer anymore?” he asks after a suitable pause.

_ And now that Daisy’s gone _ hangs unspoken in the air as Gatsby shrugs. They’re getting nowhere, and Nick doesn’t know how long they have before the swan boats of the Otherworld arrive to take Gatsby away. Perhaps they’ll take him only as far as Manhattan, or perhaps they will take him to the Otherworld, but either way, they will bring change to whatever this summer held, and Nick cannot bear to remain silent.

“Did you ever consider,” he says carefully, “that someone else might love you? Someone besides Daisy?” 

Gatsby shakes his head. 

“Daisy was the only one for me. And now, she’s left.” 

Nick is suddenly aware of their closeness, of the nearness of their knees. He reaches over for Gatsby’s hand and pats awkwardly at it. It’s a charmless and comfortless gesture, so Nick tries a different tactic, and laces his fingers with Gatsby’s. He remembers what he yelled to Gatsby before the end of summer.  _ You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together _ , he’d said and he’ll stand by that now and forever. Gatsby’s worth more to him than anyone else. And it’s because he’s worth so much that Nick turns and kisses him. 

Gatsby doesn’t push him away. When Nick draws back, he pulls him close and returns the kiss. His lips taste like summer’s end and autumn’s beginning, and then he lets Nick free. Nick blushes, and hates himself for blushing. 

“My king,” he says, embarrassment thick in his voice. 

“I’m not king any longer,” Gatsby says. “Which is rather good, because I’ve a great

desire to drop everything and travel the world.” 

“That’s sudden.” 

“Summer ended suddenly this year, old sport. I think it’s in character.” 

He’s made no mention of the kiss, but Nick doesn’t dare to bring it up. 

“I don’t suppose you’d like to come with me?” Gatsby asks. “I was thinking, perhaps, of Paris. Two men like, well, like us could get along quite nicely there. A small apartment, some connections with the other American fae, and no Court acquaintances to bother us.” 

“Alright,” Nick says, because it’s more than he could have hoped. “I’ll go. But first, what are we going to do about your servants? They think you’re dead.” 

Gatsby smiles his Summer smile again.

“I’m still the Summer King for now. I don’t think a powerful glamour’s at all beyond me.” 

The air shimmers golden, and there’s a smell of lightning in the air. Nick feels the electricity crackle in his hair, and he closes his eyes.  _ Peace! the charm’s wound up.  _ The words come to mind unbidden, but they fit the moment. 

When Gatsby’s done casting, his eyes sparkle golden, but there’s sadness behind the magic, and Nick has time to think.  _ We’re going to France because Daisy might’ve gone to France. Maybe he’ll learn to love me the way he loved Daisy and the way I loved him, but for now, I’m stopgap to his sadness. Jay Gatsby will never be free of Daisy Buchanan.  _

But he doesn’t voice his fears. 

“Kiss me again,” he says to Gatsby. 

Above them, the sky opens, and it begins to rain. And so, summer ends as it began. 

**Author's Note:**

> I loved your fae!Gatsby prompt so much that I had to write a second fic for it, this one focusing on Gatsby and Nick. There's also slightly more expansion on the way fae society works in this one. Anyways, I had a ton of fun writing it and I hope you enjoy! Other things to note: _Peace! The charm's wound up_ is a quote from Macbeth.  
> Title is, once again, from "So We'll Go No More a-Roving" by Lord Byron.


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